Pusher
by Soleil2
Summary: Yet another attempt at fixing things... part 4 is rated R
1. 1

Title: Pusher  
  
Author name: Soleil  
  
Author Email: soliel9708@aol.com  
  
Disclaimer: You know, legally, these disclaimers have no effect other than amusing us. I don't own them.  
  
Summary: A way of fixing things. Surprisingly light on angst.  
  
Pairings: H/M  
  
Spoilers: Whopping huge ones for ATW2 and this season.  
  
A/N: This is my first attempt at anything with an R rating because of, well, you know. Blushing now.  
  
He sees her for the first time in weeks at a party given by his department head. She is standing across the room, her arm looped around Clay's shoulder, so that her hand dangles over his chest. The shoulder strap of her dress doesn't stay in place, slipping, slowly traveling, down her arm at regular intervals. His fingers itch to touch it. To move the silky fabric back into place, to let his fingers linger at the space where neck slides into her shoulder.  
  
He has always liked that spot. The spot of negative space between her shoulder and her neck. It was made for his chin. Despite all that has happened, he still believes that. It feels foolish. More foolish for an almost forty-year-old man to lust after a thirty something year old woman like she was the head cheerleader in school.  
  
The pressure from his fingers threatens to snap the stem of his wineglass. He casts a prayer heavenward and hopes that in a room full of spies, spooks, and agents that the grip is subtle enough to pass beneath their radars.  
  
But it does not fall beneath hers. Her head turns and she smiles at him over her shoulder. It's a familiar, wistful smile. A smile that says she wished she knew him better or that the past had been a little different.  
  
They are standing across the room from each other. People mill and socialize between them. Music drifts over their heads and settles in the corners of the room. Her smiles lasts seconds longer than it should. The ghost of it hovers past the fading expression. She turns back to her conversation.  
  
He wonders absently if there is medication for his disease. An anti-Sarah Mackenzie drug that can keep him from crossing the room and standing by here side. From hovering by her like a moth flits around the light bulbs on a front porch in the summer.  
  
Apparently, timing has the same effect. As he begins to weave a path through the bodies between them, she says her good-byes. Her smile catches him again as she disappears across the threshold. Her hand clutches a pager and the smile is apologetic this time. He turns his attention back to the department head.  
  
He knows that this is wrong. More wrong than only paying half-attention to a man who supervises his job performance. He imagines himself splashing mental cold water on his face. He pictures her standing by the taxicab in Paraguay. He hears the cold words splash like ice cubes into the warm night air. But it doesn't work. He's an addict. He can think of no other explanation. She's bad for him and he wants her anyway. 


	2. 2

Weeks slide by, days merging into night, Sundays slip quietly into Mondays, before she sees him again. She was using Clayton Webb. He knew it, too, and she knew that it was wrong. But he was her thread, her connection to Harm. She snapped it because she realized, one function too late, that she couldn't break a good man's heart to satisfy her own. Instead, she has decided that she must content herself with glimpses and run ins, with occasional hellos and how are yous.  
  
It's mostly her fault. She ended it because, at the time, she was tired of the dancing. Her limbs ached with fatigue and her head was heavy with cotton. The exhaustion had formed itself into words and crawled out of her mouth before she knew it had taken shape. Once they were out, once they danced between them like butterflies, she was forced to defend them. To back them up and give them credence like she believed them.  
  
At first, she thought she had done the right thing. That she had taken the only step they could take when they were dancing on the edge of forever. She stepped back from the precipice. It let her gain a few inches; it let her regain her footing on the loose gravel beneath them.  
  
She didn't know what would happen. She never realized that her body craved him like it used to crave alcohol. So now she contents herself with the glances, the glimpses, and the occasional run ins.  
  
This time he has ventured into her territory. They are at a party for Bud and Harriet. A small celebration for the new baby and to celebrate the fact that they were all there to celebrate the baby.  
  
They spend most of the night circling the room, circling each other. She feels dangerous. She feels like a predator, prowling the room in slinking steps, narrowing in on her prey. Tonight, she will pounce. The lips that ended the possibilities will bring them back to the slippery edge.  
  
Her body is a compass pointing unerringly to him. She waits as he sidles around the room again. He's nervous. She can see it in his body's movements. She can see it in his eyes and she's the cause of it. Her smile feels like its coming from her belly. She angles her body into his path.  
  
He stops short. "Hi."  
  
"Hello." The word is long and drawn out. The smile widens into a grin when he gulps. 


	3. 3

They have the conversation on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Neither one of them wants to have it; they are famous for not surviving it. But they find themselves gravitating to the words. She cannot stop the pull of the conversation. She watches helplessly as it devolves into a blow-by-blow account of who hurt whom worse.  
  
Her fingers curl around his wrist and flinch as he describes his hurt. "I'm sorry." The words echo lamely in her ears.  
  
"Why did you do it then?" He wants to shake her hand off, wants to grab her wrist and yank her closer. Caught between the two polar reactions, he remains motionless.  
  
She shrugs. "I don't know," she sniffles a little. "I got scared I guess."  
  
"Of what? You were safe." His confusion is genuine.  
  
Her fingers slip off his wrist and he pulls her hand back and weaves their fingers together. "Not of the terrorists." She pauses and bites her lower lip. "Of you."  
  
His eyes widen and his ribs stop expanding mid-inhale. Slowly, he lets his breath out. His reaction tells her he does not understand. His words confirm it. "Of me?" He points to his chest with his free hand. "I don't know what more I have to do to prove myself."  
  
She huffs a breath out. "Nothing. But - I mean, can't you understand, at least a little bit, why I was so unsure? You, or I did, it was never really decided, disobeyed a direct order in order to stay with Bud. You were going to leave JAG to rescue Sergei. I wanted to believe you did it because you loved me, but I couldn't know for sure."  
  
"Are words really that important?"  
  
"Yes. No." She shakes her head.  
  
"You said the Navy was all I had."  
  
Her eyebrows dip low on her forehead. "I don't understand. Isn't it? You've been working towards it, for it, your whole life. Your whole life and then," she waves her hand between them, "poof, it's gone."  
  
"I'd hoped I'd have you at the end."  
  
"Oh." She feels smaller than the word. "Oh," she repeats it.  
  
He nods. "Oh," he echoes.  
  
"Why didn't you just say something?" Her tone is plaintive.  
  
"I didn't know I had to."  
  
"Obviously."  
  
She tugs her hand free and he lets her. She crosses her arms beneath her breasts and heaves a sigh.  
  
"Why did you turn to Clay?"  
  
"Because. Because he said the magic words, at first. Then, when I realized I didn't love him back, to see you."  
  
"Oh." He says the word this time.  
  
"Why Catherine?"  
  
"Clay." He studies her. The fall sunlight is setting slowly, washing her face in its rays. "What do we do now? We tried the beginning once."  
  
"We ended it, too."  
  
"That didn't work well."  
  
"No," she agrees. She tosses her hair back from her face. She watches the last of the light catch in hair and create shadows on his face. She sucks the fall air into her lungs. "Harm?" she exhales.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Would you like to have dinner with me sometime this week? My treat?"  
  
"I'll spring for dessert."  
  
"Deal." They shake hands. 


	4. 4

Her apartment is dark. They stumble over shoes and back into her furniture. He trusts her to guide them because his mouth is fused on to hers. It's been weeks since they first kissed. It's been weeks since the first time they fell into bed. They saw no point in waiting. They had already waited eight years.  
  
Now they were learning each other's rhythms. They were learning the spots that got the reactions. He knows, now, that if bites her lower lip, she makes that sound. That sound. She knows, now, that if she kisses, nibbles, or blows on the spot where jaw, skull, and neck converge, his left knee buckles slightly.  
  
They grope their way into the bedroom and somehow manage to find her bed. She sighs contentedly. She is sure that she will never grow tired of this. A hundred years from now, she believes the room will give off echoes of her happiness.  
  
She spent her early years battling addiction. Fighting back the demons that demanded she complete the cycle of abuse. This is one addiction she does not intend to overcome. He is her pusher, doling out kisses like drugs, keeping her trapped and wanting.  
  
Desire pools in her stomach. It slides along her legs. His hands glide down her sides and she pulls his mouth to hers. Her ankle hooks around his thigh, heel pressing harder, urging him forward.  
  
He doesn't need the urging. He doesn't need to be told. Her breath whispers across his skin and he can hear little words between the pants and feather light kisses. Her nails bite a little harder into him and then ease until her hands are no more than ghostly sensations against his back.  
  
Who could have known, he wondered, that this is what would be waiting for him when he stopped fighting against it? He knows he's lucky. But, like the saying goes, it's better to be lucky than good sometimes. Now, she tries not to doubt his actions anymore, and he tries not to give her reason to.  
  
He eases into her and she gasps a little. A sign that she is closer than he thought and he increases his speed. Their bodies slide together and pick up a rhythm that's getting a little easier everyday. Her ribs convulse in a shaky sigh as she nears her release. And he can feel himself getting closer. He waits until she gasps and then lets go. It amazes him how simple it is sometimes. He can say the words now. He breathes them into her ear late into the night and she smiles. She no longer needs them, she believes them down to her toes, but they're still nice to hear. 


End file.
